Exhaust Gasket?

I had to replace the clamp between the exhaust header and the pipe. I thought I would buy a new gasket as well. I received them both and the clamp works fine. The gasket, on the other hand, fits both places fine,but when I tried putting them together they left the pipe and frame holes 1/4 to 1/2 in. short. I eventually ruined the gasket and now I am thinking of getting a new one, but want to know what I was doing wrong. I tried pushing them together over and over. I tried hitting the pipe with a rubber mallet. Nothing would get me the extra 1/4 in.

The best muffler to pipe gasket is a 2" roll of fibber glass  tape held together with a piece of aluminum tape.Slid the muffler over it and clamp down. One small roll worked for me for the last 50 yrs .

Also "mlapoint",
if you still have it, try using the old one again.  Read somewhere on this site that someone had used their old one "several" times over.  When I had my muffler off to change the rear wheel I also just used my old one with no ill effects... Sorry, don't know why you would have been coming up short on your bolt holes other than maybe for some reason the gasket is oversized.